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Every Picture Tells a Story: Anti-Semitism

The Every Picture Tells a Story series in FirstOneThrough compares the use of photographs and captions in the major US newspapers. It demonstrates time-and-again how a liberal paper like The New York Times advances a Palestinian Arab narrative over an Israeli narrative, even in the use of pictures.

It would appear that the Times prefers to bury stories of anti-Semitism as well.

On February 22, 2017, the major papers reviewed the toppling of roughly 200 headstones in a cemetery in St. Louis, MO. The conservative paper, The Wall Street Journal, was clear about both the significance of the event as well as the target of the attack: Jews.

Cover page of the WSJ February 22, 2017

The paper printed a large color photograph on the top of its front page with a heading: “President Denounces Weekend of ‘Hate and Prejudice and Evil.” The caption of the photo read: “DESECRATION: Headstones were toppled in a Jewish cemetery over the weekend in University City, Mo. President Donald Trump on Tuesday denounced anti-Semitism, after calls for him to address the vandalism and bomb threats against Jewish community centers.”

The WSJ ran a story on page A4 which included another colored picture.

WSJ Page A4 on February 22, 2017

The caption read: “Jewish headstones that were toppled over the weekend were being put back Tuesday at Chesed Shel Emeth Cemetery in Missouri.” As with the front page picture, the caption of the picture was clear that Jews were targeted in the hate crime.

That was in sharp contrast to the coverage in The New York Times.

NYT Page A13 on February 22, 2017

The New York Times did not give the story any prominence. There was neither a cover story nor picture. However, back on page A13, there was a medium-sized black-and-white picture with an innocuous caption: “Chesed Shel Emeth Cemetery in University City, Mo., where nearly 200 graves were vandalized.” The caption did not mention Jews or anti-Semitism.

The New York Times has a long history of picking on Israel, including targeting its leadership and policies. The paper often minimized stories of anti-Semitism in Europe when it was tied to Israel fighting hostile neighbors. But now, as it continues to minimize stories of anti-Semitism in the United States, the Times is making more clear that the target of its bias is not Israeli policy, but Jews and the Jewish State.